the cliff, and was safe. Not so her companion. The soil beneath him,
loosened by the impulse of his spring, slipped away: he was falling with
it, when she caught him sharply with her disengaged hand, and together
they scrambled to a more secure footing.

"I could have reached it alone," said the "Pet," "if you'd left me
alone."

"Thank Heaven, we're saved!" said Rand gravely.

"AND WITHOUT A ROPE," said Miss Euphemia significantly.

Rand did not understand her. But, as they slowly returned to the summit,
he stammered out the always difficult thanks of a man who has been
physically helped by one of the weaker sex. Miss Euphemia was quick to
see her error.

"I might have made you lose your footing by catching at you," she said
meekly. "But I was so frightened for you, and could not help it."

The superior animal, thoroughly bamboozled, thereupon complimented her
on her dexterity.

"Oh, that's nothing!" she said, with a sigh. "I used to do the
flying-trapeze business with papa when I was a child, and I've not
forgotten it." With this and other confidences of her early life, in
which Rand betrayed considerable interest, they beguiled the tedious
ascent. "I ought to have made you carry me up," said the lady, with a
little laugh, when they reached the summit; "but you haven't known me as
long as you have Mornie, have you?" With this mysterious speech she bade